GMO crops now cultivated on 185M hectares across world

10 July 2017 Global

Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) crops now are being cultivated on 185.1 million hectares across world including the developing and the industrial countries.

This was disclosed by Dr Rhodora R Aldemita, senior programme officer, International Service for the Acquisition of Agro-biotech Application (ISAAA), Philippines while addressing at a city seminar Sunday.

Presently, GMO crops are being cultivated on 99.6 million hectares of land in the developing countries which occupies 54 per cent of the total land and it is only 46 per cent or 85.5 million hectares in seven industrial countries, according to the keynote paper.

Introduction of GMO crops would help meet 50 per cent increase in food demand by 2050, agricultural scientists attending the seminar  at Bangladesh Agriculture Research Council (BARC)  in the city said.

“Traditional technology is not enough for solving future problems in agricultural production ….Biotechnology is being used in agriculture sector for increasing nutritional value of crops and also to meet increasing food demand in future,” said Dr Rhodora said, reports BSS

Biotechnology in conjunction with conducive policies can double food production, she said the seminar on Global status of commercialized /GM crops-2016, jointly organized by ISAAA in association with BARC.

 

First posted in The Financial Express.

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